R2H
Latest
The 2006 Engadget Awards: Vote for Handheld of the Year
Now's your chance to cast your ballot for the 2006 Handheld of the Year! (For reference: yeah, we're including UMPCs in the Handhelds category.) Our Engadget Awards nominees are listed below, and you've got until 11.59PM EST on Sunday, April 15th to file your vote. You can only vote once, so make it count, and may the best tech win! The nominees: Asus R2H, Pepper Pad 3, Samsung Q1P, Sony Mylo, Sony Reader PRS-500, and Sony VAIO UX280P. %Poll-305%
OS X running on Asus R2H: Mac tablet at last, sort of
While we all just sit around, twiddling our thumbs in tense anticipation of Apple finally releasing the tablet device it's had patented for some time now, Igor is making things happen. No, his discovery wasn't exactly unearthing the long-awaited Apple tablet from a secret vault in Cupertino, but he did manage to get OS X 10.4.7 up and running on his Asus R2H UMPC. Sure, Peter Green's home-crafted MKIII (vid after the jump) was svelte in its own homegrown way, but installing Apple's own operating system on a tried and true Wintel machine is a feat worthy of praise. Although the nitty gritty of the process is scant, Igor notes that he installed OS X "JaS Patched" and also utilized an SSE2 patch to get things moving along; he stated that the installation itself "had no problems," and was quite simple (albeit time consuming) once things got rolling. Moreover, the only quirks he's experienced thus far is the inability for OS X to render the 800 x 480 resolution natively, which snips a few precious pixels of desktop space. Overall, we'd say things must be working out fairly well, as he even goes so far as to proclaim OS X as "his only operating system" installed on the UMPC -- bravo Igor, bravo.
Asus R2H UMPC reviewed
After Asus "announced" the forthcoming availability of its R2H UMPC, and eventually gave us all the go-ahead to place our orders, we still had our reservations about the less-than-revolutionary platform. The crew over at OnlyUMPC subjected the R2H to its barrage of tests, and couldn't help but dub it "awesome" based on "first impressions alone." As we expected, reviewers were thrilled with the overall design, control layout, and expansive 7-inch screen, but did find room to gripe about the meager 900MHz Intel Celeron processor and the bevy of pre-loaded applications that bogged the system to a crawl. Frankly, they felt the initial setup was about as responsive as your average "386," but removing a bit of the unnecessary software provided a zippier experience. Unfortunately, the UMPC's biggest dig rang true yet again on this unit, as the battery only delivered 2 hours, 12 minutes of usage with the bells and whistles in full effect, while switching into battery-saving mode mustered a barely adequate 3 hours, 26 minutes. Nevertheless, the "clean design" and impressive "bundle of hardware / software" landed the R2H four out of five golden stars, but we'd recommend a slightly different option if battery longevity is even of mild concern.[Via UMPC Buzz]
Asus' R2H UMPC: unboxed, fawned over
You know the drill: product prototype hits the tradeshow circuit, gets official with specs, hits for retail, and then the holiest of holies... the unboxing. Yeah, the R2H is just a generation one UMPC we've seen kicking around for like, ever. But when you just unloaded some $1000 for your new gadget, well, as the unboxer at OnlyUMPC puts it... that first impression is still, like, "awesome." We totally, like, understand bro.
Asustek R2H UMPC now available
We previously told you a couple weeks ago that Asustek had made its R2H UMPC official. Well now the R2H gets officially doubly real-deal official, given that DigiTimes reports that it's hit the streets for over $1,000. To recap, this little guy has a 7-inch screen, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR, 802.11a/b/g, fingerprint reader, a 900MHz Celeron M ULV, and can store up to 60GB worth of whatever it is that you so badly need to carry around with you. We're not going to lie, we can definitely say that as usual, Asus delivered one of the single best designs in this form factor we've yet seen.[Via TG Daily]
